Chapter 3

As all this was exactly what I needed, I took over her history, her
character, and her symptoms entire. It saved a lot of invention. She
very willingly gave her permission. Mme. Storey, a past mistress in
the art of make-up, experimented in making me resemble her. Mrs. Ensor
was in her early thirties but looked ten or twelve years older. She
had a strange, dead-leaf complexion with circles almost black under her
eyes. It was perfectly easy for me to assume her harassed and
tormented air, because, goodness knows! I felt just like that at the
prospect of bearding the terrible Dr. Touchon in his den. Mrs. Ensor,
who was wealthy, dressed in a very smart, plain style that made an odd
contrast with her haggard face. All in all, it was a rather
conspicuous make-up, but Mme. Storey considered that there was safety
in its very boldness.

On the third day my clothes came home from the makers. I went to Mme.
Storey’s house to dress and make up. I had a smart tailored ensemble
of black messaline with coat to match, and a close-fitting black hat
that completely covered my red hair. In a mirror I was absolutely
unrecognizable to myself. It made me shiver to see myself looking so
exactly like what I was supposed to be: the smart woman of the world
who had everything to live for, but who, poor soul, had lost her grip
on life. It was just the thing to make a fake doctor’s mouth water.

Mme. Storey lent me her Grace to play the part of my maid. When our
smart luggage was packed (it all bore the labels of expensive foreign
hotels) we drove to the Vandermeer Hotel and engaged an expensive
suite; registering as Mrs. Sylvanus Ensor and maid, Detroit. I called
up Dr. Touchon’s office and was given an appointment for the following
morning.

The Westmoreland was the first of the great apartment houses to be
built on Gramercy Park. It is old now but has managed to maintain its
supremacy amongst the new buildings. Its air of old-fashioned
magnificence was well calculated to inspire confidence in those who
sought the doctor’s advice. He had the ground-floor apartment on the
corner. It must have comprised twelve or fourteen rooms. His door was
opened by a gentle old man with an innocent and disarming smile. Again
the doctor showed his astuteness in choosing such a one for his
servant. I was shown into a small reception room. I gather that there
were several such waiting rooms, so that the patients need never meet.

In due course the old servant returned to say that the doctor was ready
to see me. I followed him with a fast-beating heart. The consultation
room was an immense and lofty chamber with a row of tall windows
looking out on the Park. It had dark crimson walls covered with fine
paintings in elaborate frames, superb Oriental rugs, and a quantity of
heavy carved furniture. The subtle psychological effect to be conveyed
by this conservative splendour was that the doctor had been established
at the head of his profession for a long time past.

The instant I caught sight of the master of the room I recognized his
unique power and my heart failed me. How was I to cope with such a
man? There was nothing of the greasy and overeager charlatan about
Jacmer Touchon. His professional manner was first class. He waited
for me in cool dignity, bowed with assurance, and waved me to a seat.
A handsome, stalwart, dark man in the prime of his vigour–if anything
he was too handsome; there was a certain luscious Oriental quality in
his fleshly features and full, beaming dark eye. I suppose many women
like that. Perhaps it was not of the Orient so much as the
Renaissance; cruel, clever, and sensual; one saw him in one’s mind
decked out superbly in doublet and hose at the court of Lorenzo the
Magnificent.

All the other doctors I have ever consulted took care to seat their
patients facing the light, but Dr. Touchon’s method was the reverse.
The important thing was that you should see _him_, you understand.
When he sat down with the light from the windows falling in his eyes, I
received an impression of power that made me feel weak. I can scarcely
describe those strange eyes. They seemed to burn with changing flames.
They were so dark in colour one could scarcely tell where pupil ended
and iris began. Suddenly I perceived that the pupil was widely
distended, almost filling the iris. Was it that which gave him his
look of insane power? At a later moment I noticed that the pupil had
contracted until it was not much larger than a pinhead. It struck a
feeling of dread into me. I struggled hard against my feeling of
weakness.

“You wish to consult me?” he asked in a velvety voice. It had a
hypnotic quality that went with the eyes.

I nodded silently.

“It is only fair to tell you,” he said, “that my fee for the first
consultation is five hundred dollars; one hundred for subsequent
treatments.”

“I am prepared to pay it,” I murmured.

“Did your physician send you to me?” he asked. (What superb
effrontery!)

“No,” I said, “a friend recommended you to me; a Mrs. Wilkinson of
Detroit.”

“I don’t seem to remember the name,” he said with cold courtesy.

I shivered internally under his look of suspicion. “She was not a
patient of yours,” I said hurriedly; “it was a friend of hers who was
benefited by your treatments. I don’t know the friend’s name.”

Apparently he was satisfied. “How much have you been told about my
methods?” he asked.

“Scarcely anything,” I said; “only that it was a sort of improved
psychoanalysis.”

He raised his hand with a look of pretended horror. What an actor the
man was! Though I _knew_ he was acting, he was able to prevail upon
me. “Oh, no, no!” he said. “There is no relation between
psychoanalysis and psycho-synthesis; they are the exact opposites of
one another. Psychoanalysis, with its emphasis upon the basest
impulses of human nature, destroys the soul! Fortunately it is rapidly
becoming discredited.” Here he quoted a lot of impressive-sounding
authorities. “Whereas psycho-synthesis” (his voice became tender when
he spoke the word) “builds the soul and makes it strong! Do not be
misled by the similarity of terms, my dear lady; there is the same
difference between the two methods as there is between the words
‘destructive’ and ‘constructive’!”

When I write it down it sounds hollow enough. I can give you no idea
of how convincingly it came out in his mellow and velvety voice. He
was so utterly sure of his power over women!

“You are giving me hope,” I murmured.

“What is your particular trouble?” he asked sympathetically.

“I am going mad!” I said in Mrs. Ensor’s husky, despairing tones. “At
least I think I am. That is worse than actually going mad. For mad
people, they say, are happy!”

He nodded understandingly. “What makes you think you are not normal?”